Micro Finance : Empowering those at the bottom of the Pyramid

Saying that India is a land of contrasts, may sound like a commonly heard and overused cliché. Be
that as it may, it is still quite pertinent in the many opportunities available to India’s “have’s” and “have-
not’s”. Along with the educational and infrastructural facilities, the wide gap in the financial opportunities
available to these two disparate segments can put one to shame. While the I-Bankers, on this side of the
Hindu Kush talk of turning Mumbai into one of the financial hubs of the world, there is the majority of the
rural & urban poor who are deprived of basic banking facilities. Studies suggest that a mammoth 40% of the
population is denied access to any banking facility whatsoever, out of which the major chunk constitutes of
rural poor. Can our country attain the much speculated economic-superpower status, with millions of its
citizens remaining under-banked ? Its time, we take a closer look at this issue.

One might wonder as to why banking is so very important to our poor countrymen when they don’t
have access to even basic facilities like safe drinking water and sanitation. One only needs to take a holistic
view, and understand the rural economy. More often than not, the poor farmer owning little or no land-
people who constitute the bottom of pyramid in India, are indebted to local moneylenders. The little earning
that they have from their handkerchief-size farm plots are too less to feed them for a year, especially when
the farm produce is below normal .In such a scenario they need external funds to sustain themselves and
their family. However both private and the relatively altruistic public banks lend only to people who are
credit-worthy, and these farmers don’t fit the bill. The fact that such people don’t have a regular and
assured flow of income and lack collaterals only weakens their case as credit-worthy people. Although it
might seem ironical, yet the banks, even PSBs don’t lend to people who need it the most. For the farmers,
the only way out is borrowing from the local moneylender, who charges them rates in the range of 36%-60%
a year. Needless to say, the farmer keeps paying interest and never reaches the stage of paying the
principal. The debt keeps increasing due to unpaid interest and principal. The farmer only finds himself
more indebted , although his earning power doesn’t increase. Caught between the devil and the deep sea,
the farmers operate in a vicious circle in which they, once indebted to local moneylenders, remain indebted
for life, leading to farmer suicides which we hear about so often.

Thankfully, the scenario is not that bad as it seems, at least in pockets of our country. Amidst all
these, there is a messiah named MicroFinance. MicroFinance can be defined as the provision of financial
services (such as credit, savings and insurance) to the members of low-income households, which helps them
to augment their income. Often the credit is given to a group of people, especially women , and the whole
group is responsible for the repayment of the loan. Having started as a fledgling industry nurtured by
charities, MicroFinance has now won the backing of the big international financial institutions (IFIs), such
as the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Today there are thousands
of microfinanciers serving over 40 million individuals. Many of these lenders now seek a healthy profit and
some microfinance companies have done well enough to go public.

Though the concept of microfinance was not new when it was introduced by Muhammad Yunus in
1976, it can certainly be regarded as a revolutionary one. While banks were reluctant to give loans to the
poor due to high default risks, Yunus believed that given a chance, the poor would certainly repay their
loans. This belief helped him come up with the idea of microfinance through microcredit as a viable business
model and thus he set up the Grameen bank in 1983 to extend loans to the poor Bangladeshis. The success
of this venture captured the imagination of many entrepreneurs and NGOs across India and prompted them
to set up their own microfinance institutions.

MicroFinance has been present in India for more than 15 years, and going by past records one can
infer that poor people, when given access to hassle free and timely financial services at market rates, repay
their loans and use the proceeds to increase their income and assets. They often start small business which
taps into the local market and sometimes, even provide employment to other women in the village, when
their venture gains some size. Apart from acting as a lender, some of the Micro Finance Institutions(MFIs)
also provides an opportunity to save their surplus earnings, and earn interest on it, which otherwise would
have remained unutilised. Although the rate of interest charged by (MFIs) while lending, are generally
higher than market rates, it is still much lesser than that charged by the local moneylender. Add to it the
fact, the MFIs also often advise the borrowers on ways to better utilise their borrowed money and some even
train them with certain vocational skills. It not only saves them from the avaricious local moneylenders, but

i Mag article by Arijit Das & Bhavin Shah

by virtue of Micro-Finance being primarily available to women, also acts an empowering tool for rural
women. There are now several thousand registered Self Help Groups (SHGs) and Microfinance Institutions
(MFIs) across India. The three largest independent MFIs are SHARE Microfin, BASIX Finance and SKS.

To understand the necessity of MFI’s presence we can make a simple back-of-the-envelope

calculation to estimate India’s demand for Micro-Finance. Home to some 1.13 billion people in 2008, India
constitutes approximately one sixth of the world’s total population. Of these, however, about 390m people
are still below the Poverty Line earning less than US $1 per day and rural India constitutes to about three
quarters of the total poor population. Assuming that there is one microfinance client per household and
given that there are on an average five members1 in one household, the number of microfinance clients
ranges from 58m to 77m. This translates to an annual credit demand of US$ 5.7 to 19.1 billion (INR 230 to
773 billion) assuming loan sizes between US$ 100 and 250. If we assume that the low-income but
economically active population including small and marginal farmers, landless agricultural labourers, and
micro-entrepreneurs, are also potential microfinance clients, the annual credit demand goes further up to
an estimated 245.7 million individuals and US$ 51.4 billion (INR 2.1 trillion) in annual on-lending
requirements. This only underlines the need for MFI’s and its tremendous potential for growth in India.

At this juncture it would help to look at the success of MFIs operating in this part of the world.
Not very long ago, our neighbouring country Bangladesh caught the attention of the world when its native
Prof Yunus was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for having made significant contributions to the social
upliftment of rural women through his Grameen Bank. Closer home, recent studies show that there are
some 250-300 MFIs operating in India. Some like SHARE Microfinance Ltd has done considerable work and
has gained international recognition for it. It has grown from 8 branches and 8136 clients in Mar 2000 to
307 branches and over 8 lakh clients in June 2006, making it one of the fastest growing MFIs in the world –
no less an achievement. Lest one might feel that they just give away money, a look at their risk portfolio
would allay such misconceptions. Their share of total loans outstanding for more than 30 days is only 4.6%,
meaning that almost 95% of the loans are paid in time. Based mainly in Andhra Pradesh it was
instrumental in pulling out many rural households from below the poverty line and handholding them to
eke out a decent lifestyle. There are other such success stories like SKS Microfinance , Activists for Social
Alternatives(ASA) etc.

While the need for proliferation of MFIs is obvious, there are other aspects where the MFIs
would do well to look into. If Microfinance, as is envisioned, is to be the tool for inclusive growth, it has to
increase its efficiency apart from casting its net wider. The time has come when MFIs need to innovate,
often at the local level to see what works and what doesn’t. With the increase in the number of MFIs it is
felt that they would be better off if they share their experiences and learn from each other. Their collective
wisdom should enable them to draw up strategies to make some policy changes which would enable them to
be cost effective, useful, pro-poor and thereby penetrate further into the market. Also, till now the
beneficiaries of MFIs have primarily been rural women, however as is obvious, the urban poor women are
no less deserving of their blessings (read: credit). Some of the MFIs which has deposits of the savings of
poor, should utilise these funds in an efficient manner so that it earns the maximum interest possible ,.This
may require it to pool its funds and invest in Mutual Fund/Equity and other financial instruments while
being cautious of the associated market risks. In that way it will be able to give higher returns to the poor
whose savings although minuscule and erratic are nevertheless ‘finance’, which can be better utilised, in
this age, where we are flooded with various investment options.

Let’s look at some of the innovative models that have been created my MFIs. Consider the case of
Fullerton India which is based in Mumbai. It follows a unique model of neighbourhood financing with a
focus on mass market clients within a radius of 5km from its branches. Indian Bank has several MFI
branches focussed on the Urban Self Help Group model which includes an informal association of up to 20
members who meet at regular intervals to save small amounts. Satin CreditCare was comfortable with
lending to individuals since its inception primarily to cater to their working capital needs. However, it has
now graded itself to adopt the joint liability lending model. Ujjivan, another MFI follows the group lending
model and it lends to every need, be it working capital, consumption, education, health or housing. During

i Mag article by Arijit Das & Bhavin Shah

emergencies, money is handed over the counter, to address the clients concern. Interest rates are around
1.25% a month. Ujjivan has also gone as far as to introduce a festival loan so that the lenders can celebrate
the festivals with pomp and splendour.

However notot all MFIs are innovative like Fullerton India nor did they have a stupendous growth
like SHARE, in fact many are run only if they are supplied with subsidies and government support. They
need to realise that lending on mass scale can only be achieved if they adhere to market fundamentals and
streamline their operations. Put simply, they should
s be economically self-sustainable.
sustainable. There is also a
tremendous opportunity in urban microfinance, especially in offering services such as savings, insurance,
remittances to special products etc. The absence of savings in the Indian microfinance context (barring a
few exceptions) is referred to as ‘walking on one leg’. A mechanism that allows collection ofo deposits from
the poor apart from loan dispersals can lend strength to the sector, thereby addressing a crying need of o the
poor. A fine example of thiss is the Bank Rakyat of Indonesia,
Indonesia which serves 30 million savings’
savings clients and 3
million borrowers and has $3 billion in savings and $1.7 billion in loan portfolios. This is a self-sustaining
self
model indeed.

They should also work on cost-reduction

reduction which they can achieve through simplified and
decentralized loan application, approval and collection processes, for instance, through group loans which
give borrowers responsibilities for much of the loan application process, allow the loan officers to handle
many more clients and hence reduce costs. They can increase their operational efficiency by having a
working partnership with their formal financial counterparts. Most microfinance organizations in India still
use paper to record their transactions in three basic locations: passbooks, collection sheets and office
ledgers. A loan officer who has about 400 customers with two products each has to make about 2400 manual
entries a week. This means that he has to make about 1,25,000 entries a year – a mind boggling number by
any count. The fact to note here is that we are talking about a primarily low-skilled
low skilled workforce. A missed
zero or transposed digit could result in erroneous results. So, there is a need to digitize the process.

Softwaress can be created that is simple to teach and learn. It should contain simple forms in
which the loan officer can feed data for each applicant and an internet connection, enabling him to send the
data immediately to a centralized location.
location Therere should also be a provision to have backups since electricity
is unreliable
eliable in many of the villages. A simple solution to this could
ould be to use car batteries.

The informal
ormal sector financial
financ institutions could form a jointint venture with formal sector
institutions in which the latter provide funds in
i the form of equity and the formerer extends savings and loan
facilities to the urban poor. In the coming years, funds
f from financial institutions promises to be one of the
key drivers of this industry.
ndustry. While many commercial investors see the industry as an emerging asset class,
it will be critical to invest in large capacity to channel capital and maintain growth and financial
performance.

i Mag article by Arijit Das & Bhavin Shah

Under such symbiotic relationships, the informal sector institutions (e.g. MFIs) would be able to tap
additional resources as well as have an incentive to exercise greater discipline in their resource (read:
funds) management.

The experiences obtained through the operations of successful as well as not-so-successful MFIs
offers us valuable lessons. Firstly, the poor repay their loans and are willing to pay for higher interest rates
than commercial banks provided that access to credit is provided. The group pressure and incremented
lending in future, provide strong repayment motivation and produce extremely low default rates. Secondly,
the poor save and hence microfinance should provide both savings and loan facilities. These two findings
imply that banking on the poor can be a profitable business. It would be ideal to enhance the
creditworthiness of the poor and to make them more ‘bankable’ to financial institutions and enable them to
qualify for long-term credit from the formal sector. The MFIs provide economic empowerment to the people
at the bottom of the pyramid, which in turn leads to making them customers with financial muscle, and not
just beneficiaries of subsidies and farm loan waivers. When the people, who benefit from MFIs, are
considered as customers by the market forces, it will automatically devise goods and services which fulfil
the needs specific to this class and thereby lead to overall improvement of their lives. That apart, the credit
provided to the female members of the household, makes them earning members of the family and often
enables them to have more say in the day to day activities of their household. This in turn reduces domestic
violence towards women and better future for the girl child. This is social empowerment from the grass root
level without getting trapped into the quagmire of, various seemingly-noble but ineffective, governmental
loan waiver policies.

Let us take an illustrative example. Saryamma and her husband were landless labourers who
earned about $1 a day. Frequent drought in their village often made work and food scarce. Circumstances
compelled Saryamma’s husband to become a bonded labour - a form of indentured servitude that still exists
in India, so the family would have enough money to eke out a subsistence living. Her eldest son was forced
to seek work rather than attending school.

In 2002, Saryamma joined the empowerment program by SKS and recruited four other women from her
village who wanted loans. In line with their group-lending model, each loan was linked to the others: If one
woman couldn’t pay her small weekly instalment, the rest of the women chipped in; if she refused to pay,
the others pressured her into meeting her obligation. Saryamma initially borrowed $200 to buy a buffalo so
she could sell the milk. She took one year to repay, in weekly increments of $4.50. In subsequent years, she

i Mag article by Arijit Das & Bhavin Shah

took out other capital loans, eventually adding three more buffalo, a cow, two acres of land, and a pair of
bulls to her portfolio. Her family’s net income has increased to $10 a day, propelling her firmly into India’s
lower middle class. Her husband is now free from bonded labour, and Saryamma’s youngest children are the
first in the family to attend school.

Microfinance is a tool whose potential we have just started to realise. As and when the MFIs
make further innovations in their operations it might open up new vistas and lead to further socio-economic
upliftment, especially for those, who are ignored by the market forces and looked down upon as burden by
various governments. If the Micro Finance Institutes can cast its spell, wide and deep into the Indian
hinterland, the so-called ‘Bottom Of the Pyramid’ can do justice to its name, by being the bedrock of
Indian society, over which the relatively well-heeled but thinner layers are built onto.

-Arijit Das & Bhavin Shah

i Mag article by Arijit Das & Bhavin Shah